When war can be good for you

Wednesday, 1 June 2005ABC/AFP

War can boost troops' mental health, if they are part of highly selected force, new research suggests. Shown here UK forces flying over Iraqi oil fields (Image: Reuters/Pool/Ian Jones, Daily Telegraph)

While it has long been associated with distressing psychological condition such as shell shock, war can sometimes be good for a soldier's mental health, according to a UK study.

Researchers from King's College London, who looked at the psychological wellbeing of hundreds of UK troops before and after they served in Iraq, found a significant relative improvement in their overall mental state.

The survey, published in the current issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, analysed questionnaires from 421 members of 16 Air Assault Brigade, before and after taking part in operations in Iraq for around four months.

The team led by Dr Jamie Hacker Hughes analysed the soldiers' psychological scores and concluded that they revealed "a highly significant relative improvement in mental health".

"These findings raise the question of whether military deployment is necessarily bad for psychological health," the researchers say.

"This study also reminds us that where there are highly selected forces with high morale involved in focused operations with positive outcomes, whatever the immediate political context, participation in war fighting may sometimes not necessarily be as deleterious to psychological wellbeing as has previously been thought."